Our Cockatiel Angel

Angel was my first and last attempt of owning a bird. Angel came to us by way of an elderly woman who could not care for her any longer. Which may have been why we had so many problems with her. I think she missed her old owner and her way of life.

Birds are smart and they like the people that spend the most time with them. In Angel's case she went from a house where one person sat by her side all day long to a house full of people that were constantly moving around her.

Over the two years we had Angel she never really got used to being handled by anyone in my family except myself. We also could never get her to talk or sing for us no mater how much we tried. The only person that she was ever affectionate towards was my grandfather, every time he would visit Angel would sing and cuddle him. In the end it was clear that Angel was not happy with us, which made me sad, but a friend of my grandfather's bird had died and she happily took Angel. Almost immediately the two bonded, so I am glad we made that choice.

Prior to Angel I had experience training dogs and guinea pigs so I thought I would be able to train Angel but I have to admit we had a lot of trouble spending the time with her that a bird needs for proper training. I think the two things I would have done looking back now would be to have paired her (I think she was lonely) and secondly I would have spent a lot more time with hands on training.

If you are thinking about getting a bird as a pet the two things I would say to consider is the amount of time that you can dedicate to training a pet (birds need a lot of attention) and secondly is how much time you are willing to spend caring for the pet (birds are a bit messy and take some serious cleaning).